Surrounded by Surveillance: Is Everything Spying On You?

Surrounded by Surveillance: Is Everything Spying On You?Depending upon who you listen to, GPS tracking shouldn't be your only concern when you are out and about on the streets.

By Darlene Storm, Computerworld Nov 24, 2011 11:00 pm

Depending upon who you listen to, GPS tracking shouldn't be your only concern when you are out and about on the streets. The ACLU hammered license plate scanners as 'logging our every move,' a different investigative report concluded your car is spying on you, and some even claim the street lights are out to get you.

The ACLU reported on the "widespread tracking of citizen's movements" via the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs). "It has now become clear that this technology, if we do not limit its use, will represent a significant step toward the creation of a surveillance society in the United States." The ACLU does, of course, regard GPS tracking without a warrant as intrusive on privacy, but license plate reader "technology is rapidly approaching the point where it could be used to reconstruct the entire movements of any individual vehicle." Some might call that paranoid, but the ACLU said of such accusations, that it is always "amazed by the speed and consistency with which our worst fears for these kinds of technologies turn into reality."